1. Field of the Invention
This application relates generally to managing electronic data to be stored on a portable computer-readable medium and, more specifically, to a method and system for storing non-DICOM-compliant files and data on a portable computer-readable medium in association with a DICOM study.
2. Description of Related Art
The Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (“DICOM”) standard was enacted to promote uniformity in the storage and communication of medical images so that such information can be readily shared across platforms of different vendors. To ensure data uniformity the DICOM standard imposes strict requirements on data formatted according to that standard.
Electronic documents formatted as Microsoft® Word and Adobe® PDF documents are not considered to be DICOM compliant. However, physicians, hospitals and other medical caregivers regularly create patient reports and charts, for example, in such non-DICOM formats. These, and other, document formats that are not compliant with have thus far been unable to be stored on the same portable computer-readable medium as a DICOM study for the same patient.